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MXMTOON
announces first ever
Australian tour
October 2022
+ New album RISING
out May 20th on AWAL
+ Shares new single
‘SAD DISCO’
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“…a Bedroom Pop Empire in the Making” – THE NEW YORK TIMES
“mxmtoon is an 18-year old singer-songwriter from Oakland who’s amassed a sizable following on Twitter and YouTube on the strength of her endearingly intimate presence” – NPR
“The internet belongs to mxmtoon” – i-D
“Hyper-relatable tunes from YouTube sensation turned pop star” – NME
“Hooking into online culture with her diary-like lyricism, Maia crafts twinkling gems” – DIY
“…an absolutely killer mid-tempo melody that’s a little reminiscent of Billie Eilish — but no matter what name she’s working under, ,mxmtoon/Maia is fully her own artist.” – VARIETY
“On the masquerade, which features songs written over the last two years, she’s offering the most polished picture of herself yet. And it’s one that, like all of her music, succeeds based on her candor and intelligence.” – NYLON
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mxmtoon ‘sad disco’ – OUT NOW
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Today, one of the brightest and most engaging voices of her generation mxmtoon returns with her new album rising, which will be released on May 20th on AWAL. In very exciting news, the album will be supported by her first ever Australian tour playing all ages venues in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. The now Brooklyn-based artist also shares new song ‘sad disco’ which is out now.
Maia says on coming to Australia: “i’m so excited to be able to come to australia this october! i’ve been wanting to play shows there for so long and it feels crazy that it’s finally able to happen. i am scared of the bugs though, i heard they are really big, so i may need some help :)” For tour and ticket information please visit HERE. Tickets go on sale to general public at Friday 1 April 11am local.
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‘sad disco,’ is an electrifying dance party for one inspired by the stacks of ABBA records that comforted her during her year of lost time. Backed by fluorescent synthesizers and tessellated drums, Maia offers a sharp scene of a teenager stranded at home, finding comfort in moving and singing along when “you’re bored and alone.” It’s a three-minute revelation for mxmtoon, not only for the depth of its storytelling but also for its unapologetic disco indulgence, a longtime love of Maia that she’s never brought to bear with such power. ‘sad disco’ is music as a rescue mission.
On ‘sad disco’ mxmtoon tells us “I was 17 years old when I wrote my song ‘prom dress.’ Four years later, I sat and listened to it, wondering if the lyrics and ideas still resonated with my now 21-year-old self. I decided that it did, and it also didn’t. I’d grown up since I wrote that song and realized I wanted to make something that felt current to my individual. ‘sad disco’ was the resolution to that desire. A song built with the same bones that ‘prom dress’ was made from, but more reflective of the growth I’ve experienced in my own life since. It’s a song meant to make you find joy in the quiet, to emulate that feeling of being alone in your bedroom, blasting music through a pair of headphones in the middle of the night. In a way, it feels like an answer to the girl who wrote ‘prom dress’ in the first place. serving as a reminder that she isn’t stuck on the floor with tears streaming down her face forever, but that she’ll grow up, and the loneliness she sometimes feels won’t define her. She can still choose to dance and have her own ‘sad disco.’”
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Last month mxmtoon gave us ‘mona lisa’, a dreamy, ukulele driven ditty which will feature on rising. Both songs hail a new direction for the already accomplished singer-songwriter.
In truth, only five years have passed since Maia’s self-made songs and videos began shaping a new sort of star through mxmtoon. But at least two of those years have, of course, passed like decades, each packed with enough worry and woe and loss and hope to catalyze aging at large. And so it goes with rising, mxmtoon’s bold and compelling and wise second album, a 12-song set that looks at the hardest lessons of these recent dark days and opts to surge forward through triumphs of pop-and-disco confessionalism.
For Maia, rising represents the culmination of an unintended trilogy that also includes dawn and dusk, the dual EPs she released in 2020. It’s true that rising continues their era of rapid musical growth for mxmtoon. But these dozen songs on the album are the definitive steps forward for mxmtoon, because they are just as ingenious and honest and unguarded musically as Maia has always been lyrically.
This is the music she needed to make and hear after those years that felt like decades, after growing enough to know this is what other people might need, too. These songs collectively argue that growth is never done, that rising is just one of many restarts and beginnings to come. “The old me was OK,” she declares at the start of ‘coming of age,’ the wonderland that closes rising. “But I think it’s time for something new.” From the sound of it all, she delights in being reborn.
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About MXMTOON
The world first met Maia, the mastermind behind mxmtoon, when she was a 17-year-old singer with a ukulele. In 2017, and from the guest bedroom in her parents’ California home, the high-school student began posting covers of pop favorites and her own catchy confessional musings, tunes that spoke frankly of her setting’s assorted tribulations — dates and a lack thereof, online socializing and offline loneliness. A queer kid of mixed Chinese, German, and Scottish ancestry, Maia sang songs that expressed an interiority of the underrepresented with honesty, understanding, and hooks that could not be forgotten. mxmtoon became a streaming sensation, her teenage ditties defining a new era of what it meant to make bedroom pop. mxmtoon became an avatar for the new bloom of representation and inclusion in American pop.
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Tour Dates
Tuesday 4th October – Recital Centre, Melbourne
Thursday 6th October – Factory, Sydney
Sunday 9th October – Triffid, Brisbane
Tuesday 11th October – The Tuning Fork, Auckland
Tickets HERE go on sale
to general public at Friday 1 April 11am local
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mxmtoon – rising – pre-save here
rising
Tracklisting
1. mona lisa
2. learn to love you
3. victim of nostalgia
4. sad disco
5. frown
6. florida
7. scales
8. growing pains
9. dizzy
10. haze
11. dance (end of the world)
12. coming of age
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Follow MXMTOON
Facebook – Spotify – Instagram
Twitter – TikTok – YouTube
SoundCloud – Twitch
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AMNPLIFY – NB
My nickname is “The Amnplifier”. Why? Because around here my focus is on being a conduit for providing greater outcomes that people come here for. My day to day “work” is living in the moment, and I love helping others concentrate on finding their connection to themselves through their experiences.
Why start a music environment? The truth is I love music, I love writing, and I love life. I work with musicians every day, and I feel certain that I will be until they put me in the ground. I have been managing people in businesses of some sort for over thirty five years so along the way I have developed some “wisdom” from my regular and constant “observations”.
Amnplify your experience. That is what we want you to do here, and if you want to let me know why you do, or don’t, shoot me a message on Facebook.
Hope you enjoy yourself here and find something that hits you somewhere.